Those who adopt a Neronian date — a view which has been widely accepted t — have even greater difficulties in obtaining substantial evidence for a persecution of the desired type in northern Asia Minor in the sixties. There is, ho^vever, very e.x- plicit evidence for a severe persecution in Rome during Nero's reign. Tacitus {Annals, xv. 44), writing about a.d. 115, says that Nero, in order to free himself from the charge of incendiarism, alleged that the Christians were responsible for the great lire of the year 64. While Tacitus does not think they were guilty,he does regard them as male- factors deserving the severest of the punishments which they received at Nero's hands. Likewise Suetonius (-Vcro, 16), writing about ttve years later, says that Nero severely punished the new and mis- chievous superstition, though he does not make the great fire the occasion for this action. Clement of Rome {ad Cor. 5-7), about the year 95, speaks less explicitly, but in the light of the statements of Tacitus and Suetonius it seems altogether probable that Clement has in mind the Neronian persecution. Whether Tacitus is right in connecting the tire with Nero's action against the Christians is some- times disputed, t but the evidence for a Neronian persecution some time after the conflagration of the year 64 is overwhelming. The ground of the per- secution was crimes of one sort or another commonly charged against these people who were ' hated for their enormities ' (so Tacitus). Clement says that 'envy' was the cause of the trouble, and his lan- guage doubtless reflects the same popular animosity of which Tacitus speaks. The new religionists probably were hated ' as Christians,' and from their point of view they might regard themselves as suffering for the name of Christ, but legally they were being punished for crimes of which they were accused by their enemies.
This situation might be said to correspond fairly well with that of 1 Peter, but we have no certain knowledge that the Neronian persecution reached to the East, and particularly to the peoples ad- dressed in 1 P 1'. Advocates of the Neronian date quite plausibly remark that members of the new
* See Canfleld, op. at. pp. 70-85, 161-175.
\ Lately defended by MofFatt, op. cit. p. 323 ff., who also lists the names of its chief adherents.
I See especially A. Profumo, Lefonti ed t tempi delV incendio Neroniano, Rome, 1905.
cult, because of their hostility to contemporary customs, would everywhere become objects of hatred, a hatred which might break out in fiery persecution at any time when the magistrate* could be induced to act. Some such hypothetical situation may have existed in northern Asia Minor during the reign of Nero, but this is only a possi- bility and not a certainty.
From the standpoint of the persecutions, the advantage would seem to be with a date shortly before the rescript of Trajan and during the early days of Pliny's governorship. But if the letter was written at this time, or even under Domitian, it must have been pseudonymous (or anonymous). Peter cannot po.ssioly have been alive in the second decade of the 2nd cent., nor is he likely to have lived until the time of Domitian.* Pseudonymity of itself is not inconceivable. The use of some ancient worthy's name to lend authority to a message, especially in crises, was a literary pheno- menon familiar to that age.t But for many inter- preters other considerations weigh heavily in f.tvour of Petrine, or near-Petrine, authorship, and this conviction necessitates the choice of a Neronian date. Thus the question of date shades into that of authenticity.
5. Authenticity. — Outside the NT the earliest specific testimony to Petrine authorship is by Irenaius (IV. ix. 2, xvi. 5 ; V. vii. 2), and, from this time on, similar statements are common {e.i/. Tertul- lian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian, Eusebius).! But the book was not mentioned in the Muratorian Canon, and it seems to have been less well known at Rome than in the East and in Africa. Echoes of its language have been sus- pected in certain passages of Clement of Rome, but the resemblances are not sufficiently strong and distinctive to establish literary interdepend- ence.t The same thing is true in the case of Hernias § and Ignatius.il But Polycarp and Papias seem beyond doubt to have been acquainted with the letter, although we have no information from them on the question of authorship. Of Papias, Eusebius {HE III. xxxix. 16) says : ' he used testi- monies from the First Epistle of John and likewise from that of Peter'; and in Polycarp's letter to the Philippians there are several passages so closely akin to the language of 1 Peter that Polycarp's acquaintance with the document is commonly thought to be beyond question.il This opinion was expressed as early as the time of Eusebius {HE IV. xiv. 9). It is remarkable that Polycarp never mentions the name of Peter, and on the strength of this fact Harnack {op. cit. p. 457 ff.) believes that the document was anonymous in Polycarp's day and that the opening and closing verses (!"• 5'-'''') were added later, probably by the author of 2 Peter, in the interests of canoniza- tion. This view is adopted, in a somewhat modi- fied form, by McGiffert {op. cit. p. 598 ff.), who makes Barnabas the original author. Thus the external evidence leaves the question of authorship in some doubt, although it establishes the fact that